LP REVIEW
Klaus Marten ‘In A Dream’ Released 5th June 2014
Emerging like a paranormal broadcast from his Brooklyn bedroom studio, Klaus Marten once more coaxes the cerebral from the most minimal of white noise. His latest patchwork discovery of sound collages, unruly guitar strangulated buggery and vaporous acoustic wanderings drift surreptitiously between the hazy, ominous and languid.
Expanding, in a manner, beyond previous ‘lost and found’ tapes collections, Marten picks outs many a pastoral, Barrett-esque, extemporised tinkered tune on the acoustic, flirts with the submerged candy psych of Ariel Pink, and serenades the listener, under a insect-rich cacophony sweltering twilight hour sky.
Eased into the evaporates stream of consciousness, Marten’s blueprint permeating, panoramic sweeping, wave forms slowly take on a tangible shape on the opening ‘Loops’; the sustained and later on holy choral drone, are piqued by regular bobbing bass notes and drumbeat, heading in the direction of My Bloody Valentine. The scary shit comes next, in the guise of an séance, one that’s turned nasty on a Mars basecamp. An unworldly presence shifts around in the shadows on the heightened futuristic ghostly ‘Outpost’.
In a schizophrenic roll of the dice, two distinct identities step forward from the particle-frazzled soundscape. There’s a tender, more with strained, even at times bordering on making it up as he goes along, mood and then the Marten who wrestles for control of the foot pedal and dial marked unwieldy: squealed, wailed and fried, the acoustic is amped up and fucked about with until distressed and unable to continue, it vanishes into the dispersed ether of white noise, Martin in a bastardised mode finally succumbing under the strain of fucking around.
Lingering in relative obscurity, our Brooklynite composer posts his transmissions in the digital equivalent manner of leaving an unmarked tape on a park bench or phone box; who knows where it might end up and what emotions it will rouse when picked up by some unsuspecting passer-by. Putting the soul into noise and sustained minimal sine waves, his In A Dream collection of passages, vignettes and soundtracks prove thoughtful, resonating and even diaphanous.
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